According to family legend, Skeeter Jr. made a handshake agreement with Grahame Wood, founder of Wawa Inc., in the 1960s, and Wawa employees were sent to work at Heritage’s stores to learn the business when Wood added stores to the family’s milk business. For years, Wawa didn’t open any stores in direct competition with Heritage’s, but that changed after Wood’s death in 1982, Skeeter III said.

A Wawa spokeswoman couldn’t confirm the anecdote, but Richard J. George, a food marketing professor at St. Joseph’s University, said it would seem likely that Wood would seek to replicate the Heritage business model.